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September 6, 1999: This message was distributed by Papyrus News, a free e-mail distribution list on the global impact of information technology on language, literacy, and education. Feel free to forward this message to others, but please include this introductory paragraph. For information on subscribing or unsubscribing to Papyrus News see http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/web/faculty/markw/papyrus-news.html.

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[a recent newsletter on computing and technology in the developing world...Mark]

01010101 bYtES For aLL * bYtES For aLL * bYtES For aLL 10101010

n e w t e c h n o l o g i e s w i l l m e a n h a v i n g m o r e

i n t h e h a v e-n o t c a m p i f w e a r e n o t c a r e f u l

0101010101 Issue No 2 * Aug 1999 1010101010

1010101010 AN OCCASIONAL NEWSLETTER TO MAKE 0101010101

0101010101 COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGY 1010101010

1010101010 FRIENDLY TO THE NEEDS OF THE MILLIONS 0101010101

1010101010 Compiler: Frederick Noronha fred@vsnl.com 0101010101

Says Dr Michael L. Dertouzos (engineer, inventor, theretician and director of the Laboratory for Computer Science at the MIT): "A while ago, I had this naive assumption that I could go to Nepal, obtain computers and training from the Nepalese and get them to have a 20 percent jolt in the GNP. But here's what I found out: only 30 percent of the Nepalese are literate. Of that 30 percent, only 10 percent speak English. Even if I got someone to provide everyone of them with a computer with communications, what could they do with them? They have no skills to sell. To get people to do this, I would have to educate them, and people don't get educated overnight. So, 15 years....

From this and other experiences, I've concluded that the information revolution, if left to its own devices, will mean that the rich are going to buy more computers, be more productive and become richer, and the poor will not be able to do that and will stand still. History teaches us that whenever the gap between rich and poor increases, we have all kinds of troubles." -- Quoted in NEW YORK TIMES.

Petrazzini, Ben and Mugo Kibati. "The Internet in Developing Countries" Communications of the ACM 42(6) (June 1999) http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/cacm/1999-42-6/p31-petrazzini/p31-petrazzini.pdf

For most of the world, Internet access is a rare and costly thing. Topics addressed are the lack of low-cost regional IP backbones (eg monthly charges for circuits between Asia-Pacific countries are much higher than monthly charges between those countries and the US), limited availability of local call rates for dialup services, and of course the inescapable facts of poverty and purchasing power. In Ghana, an account with Africa Online costs $50 per month, almost twice the monthly income of most Ghanians.

CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has The Poverty Project Team (Asia Branch) at the site http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/pauvrete/asie

On July 12, the United Nations Development Programme released its 1999 Human Development Report. It notes that the U.S. has more computers than the rest of the world combined. More than 80% of Web sites are in English, and less than 1% of the world's population reads this language. The U.N. authors said that the price of a personal computer amounts to about a month's salary in the U.S., but eight years' salary for the average person in Bangladesh.

http://www.undp.org/hdro/E3.html

http://www.undp.org/hdro/99.htm

By Uday Lal Pai/ InternetNews India Correspondent

India's department of telecom (DoT), monopoly telecom player, will establish its own Internet backbone, crossing the entire Indian sub-continent within six months! The Telecom Commission of India has set January 26, 2000 as deadline for setting up Internet access nodes at every district in India. The project cost for the national Internet infrastructure is estimated to the tune of $ 100 million. The DoT has the basic network in place. According to its deputy director-general N. Parameswaran, DoT has to increase the bandwidth and other facilities for easy Internet access and the entire project would be completed in a year. According to sources, DoT plans to set up five international gateways in India's mega metros - New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore - with 34 Mbps connectivity in the first instance. DoT launched Internet services last year and now is operating Internet nodes in 54 areas. It has a customer base of nearly 50,000 subscribers. The national Internet backbone would mainly help the ISPs in the smaller cities, said Parameswaran.

http://asia.internet.com/1999/7/2304-india.html

An ubiquitous telecommunications infrastructure linking up all villages and towns with the rest of the world is essential for information flow, says Dr T H Chowdary. This paper's author is the Information Technology Advisor to Government of Andhra Pradesh and Chairman, Pragna Bharati, Hyderabad.

http://news.satyamonline.com/section.asp?SectionName=&FileName=19990716/choedharyjuly16.htm

For those searching for a sturdy, appropriately-priced affordable computer operating system, please consider Linux. Linux is promoted in India through the web-site

http://www.linux-india.org

Check it out for answers to questions such as:

* What is Linux?

* Why is it becoming popular?

* Why do you need Linux?

* Does Linux have applications?

* There is no support for Linux...

* But there are no big companies behind Linux...

* Don't I need to be a computer guru to use Linux?

To subscribe to the Linux-India users group, send mail to majordomo@aunet.org and in the body write subscribe linux-india-digest

For Linux books and a wide range of software easily accessible in India, visit http://www.gtcdrom.com

Email for a catalogue: gtcdrom@vsnl.com

The Conference on Information Technology in Asia: Information Equality in the Next Millennium (CITA '99) will be held on September 15 & 16, 1999 at Kuching, Sarawak in Malaysia. The information technology gap and related inequities between industrialized and developing nations are widening. Most developing countries are not sharing in the communication revolution. A new type of poverty - information poverty - looms. Information Technology has undoubtedly fuelled the startling pace of Asia's recent development. Yet, tremendous contrasts still exist throughout Asia in the extent and depth of IT use. For most Asians, telephone calls are a rare luxury and computers are unknown. Are the poor destined to be perpetual bystanders on the information superhighway? Will the next millennium herald an information age which is inhabited by a minority elite only or will the poor majority be allowed to share equally in the benefits of a wired society?

For more information: http://www.unimas.my/cita99/

ASIF FAROOQUI reports from Islamabad: Chief Coordinator Programme 2010 Ahsan Iqbal revealed that the government has finalised first ever National Information Technology Policy and the same would be unveiled on August 16, 1999.

http://www.brecorder.com/story/S0011/S1103/S1103107.htm

LAHORE (July 18) : The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has suggested to the Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) to lower its tariff for data transmission users so that country can join the Information Super Highway. The PITB has informed the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif that the idea of an electronic government can only materialise if the PTCL allows differentiation between local and international access. The PITB Chief said that they were also planning to establish a local back-bone for the internet users which would save 60 percent of their time during surfing of local sights. He said that the sub-marine communication lines could be the best alternative to the high cost satellite data communication. However, Pakistan has yet to join this line and it would take time to establish but nonetheless Pakistan would have to establish its own local back-bone for the internet users.

http://www.brecorder.com/story/S0010/S1002/S1002108.htm

SEOUL: The number of Asian Internet users is expected to soar by 40 percent a year to hit 64 million in 2003, generating billions of dollars in e-commerce and advertising revenue, research seen Thursday showed.

http://www.brecorder.com/story/S0010/S1002/S1002110.htm

A recent discussion on the mailing list S-Asia-IT <s-asia- it@apnic.net> focuses on this issue. Sean Kline (Mostar, Bosnia) writes: Clearly to expect the internet (or IT generally) to serve disenfranchised people throughout the world is unrealistic, particularly given that we already have plenty of important proxies of well-being before us (literacy, health, telephone usage, etc.). What about other agents of change such as governments (those that have made a fiscal commitment to improving the condition of their people), NGOs and international agencies? I wouldn't necessarily suggest that these actors should be the focal point for yet more finite funding, but wouldn't it be fair to say there are ripple and/or indirect effects of information flows and technological development that do in fact benefit marginalized people? Just a thought...

Commented Ahmed Omair <ao@akunet.org>, of The Aga Khan University in Karachi: I personally feel that this information technology is only benefiting few areas. Main problems like clean water and health care for everyone is still a dream. The distribution of wealth is to be blamed for it....

If you'd like to join this interesting and informative list on South Asian IT, contact Irfan Khan <khanIA@super.net.pk> or owner-s-asia-it@apnic.net

Venkatesh 'Venks' Hariharan <venky@venky.org> writes in to say that he is to join the Indian Institute of Information Technology Bangalore and his area of research there is Information Technology in Developing Countries (ITDC). He looks forward to having "lots of notes to exchange in the future".

Bharatbhasha (http://www.bhratbhasha.org ) is an initiative to promote the use of computers in Indian and South Asian languages. (sic) It give away freeware fonts in Bangla, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Gurmukhi through this site. It has ported these fonts to Linux and are now looking for collaborators who can join us in creating India's first Indian language operating system. "Over the next few years, we want to localise the Linux user interface into as many Indian languages as possible," writes Venky <venky@venky.org > More details also from kumar_harsh@hotmail.com

By Uday Lal Pai InternetNews India Correspondent (July 26, 1999)

The government of India has finalized guidelines for setting up of private international Internet gateways by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This breaks Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited's (VSNL) monopoly on Internet gateway services. In the absence of security guidelines, ISPs could not establish their gateways and were hence, forced to lease capacities from VSNL. Now, it is mandatory for the private gateway providers to connect all routers above 2 Mbps with monitoring facilities of national security agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and RAW. The permission is not required for use of encryption up to 40-bit key length. For stronger encryption, the de-cryption key split into two parts is to be deposited with the telecom authority. Soon after the ISP policy was announced by the government in November last year, several ISPs including Satyam Infoway, Bharti-BT, Global Electronic Commerce Services and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) contacted DoT expressing interest in setting up their own gateways.

http://asia.internet.com/1999/7/2602-india.html

Rediff on the Net has done an interview with Ram Suri, the developer of a new 128-bit encryption software. The URL is http://www.rediff.com/computer/1999/jul/09suri.htm

Interested in conducting a short training workshop for non-profit organisations wanting to learn web-design? Oneworld-South Asia (http://www.oneworld.org ) can help you organise the same. For details contact Nitya Jacob, Regional Coordinator, South Asia <nitya@oneworld.org>

Check out community technology center (telecenter) experiences in communities in the U.S. One report included is Steve Cisler's <cisler@pobox.com> Computer and Communications Use in Low-Income Communities 12/98

http://www.ctcnet.org/publics.html

The chief minister of India's largest state has something to boast about -- he has the vital statistics of every village in his state stored on hard disc. Digvijay Singh has worked hard to ensure that the central state of Madhya Pradesh is one of a handful of states to have Internet access in each of its districts, with details about each village stored in computers.

http://asia.internet.com/Reuters/1999/07/2001-news.html

Dr Jane Millar <J.E.Millar@sussex.ac.uk> of Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex, is interested in hearing about any software applications that are being used among Third World communities and whether/how they impact community welfare. She writes: "I am particularly keen to hear examples of systems that are being used to support small businesses, the use of geographical or environmental information systems and systems that are installed in schools, libraries and telecentres."

The South Indian language, Tamil has become the first language in India to have a universally accepted keyboard and encoding scheme for use in information technology. The Government will make them available to the users through various forums including the Internet. There are an estimated 71 million Tamil speakers worldwide, mainly in South India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

http://www.indev.nic.in/news/2june99.html

A school internet development project has been recently launched in Namibia. *Insect@thon* is a new annual school contest created by the National Museum of Namibia. Its purpose is to inventory national biodiversity information (this year, the insects of Namibia), and promote the Internet at schools in Namibia (less than 30% of schools in Namibia presently have telephones!). This is an interactive, participatory event intended to encourage students to take advantage of the Internet as a vast, and constantly growing, source of information. The target of the Insect@thon is to inventory *70,000* hand- written insect records (comprising 11 data-fields) in *two* days (14-15 August), employing 15 school teams of 4 - 6 students each. The Insect@thon event is entirely sponsored by the local corporate community. Subsequent school involvment by way of the Internet, i.e., adding more biodiversity records to our webtop databases, will be rewarded with credit points. These will allow the students at these schools to obtain additional equipment, software, Internet subscriptions, payment of telephone bills,etc.

http://www.natmus.cul.na/insectathon.html

Details: Joris Komen, Curator/IT Manager, National Museum of Namibia <joris@NATMUS.CUL.NA>

Kerala's e-governance initiative is off the ground. The RD-Net, the Rural Development Network, unleashes the power of the Internet on the state's 152 development blocks. RD-Net should now enable rural folks to access government data, apply for loans and lodge complaints from their remote villages. Last week the government commissioned this rural technology mission. The RD-Net has linked the state capital and the 14 district headquarters to all the 152 block panchayats already. Commissionarate of Rural Development Joint Director P C Jain told Rediff "Rural development across Kerala will not be the same now. We hope this technological feat we have achieved will help in the execution of rural development projects much faster." Jain explains that email, data transfer, data downloading, application processing and lodging and settling complaints are all possible through RD-Net. It also provides instant details about all the poverty alleviation and rural schemes of the state and the central governments to the villagers.

http://www.rediff.com/computer/1999/aug/05kerala.htm

Economist and social critic Jeremy Rifkin says we're entering a new phase in history marked by a sharp and inevitable decline of jobs as a result of computers, robotics, telecommunications and other technological advances. Many jobs, he says, are destined for extinction (blue collar workers, secretaries, receptionists, librarians, middle managers,and many others), while most of the new jobs that are created provide low-paying and generally temporary employment.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0874778247/newsscancom/

"The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era," by Jeremy Rifkin (Tarcher/Putnam 1995).

The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) has been conducting national research on the issue of information technology and Latinos since 1986. Its TRPI's most recent report on information technology is "Closing the Digital Divide: Enhancing Hispanic Participation in the Information Age" (1998). iNEQUITIES in access to information technology exist among certain segments of the population. Those least likely to have access to information technology include the poor, minorities and those living in rural areas. Contact: Dr. Paula Bagasao, (909) 621-8897, 241 East 11th Street, Steele Hall, Third Floor, Claremont, CA 91711-6194

Drik is a picture library which is based in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The Third World has traditionally been portrayed by western photographers on short term assignments. Their need to take "sure sell" photographs prevent them from taking pictures that stray outside the proven hits: poverty, disaster or nostalgia. The combination of posh hotels, jet lag and diarrhoea leaves little scope for pictures that go deeper than the surface. The predictable outcome, yet another rehashed fund raising picture of starving children is what Drik is trying to break out of. Drik operates as a photographic resource centre and nine years and 100,000 images later it stands tall amongst the image banks in the developing world. It's multimedia unit spearheads Drik's attempt at producing innovative and entertaining information based products aimed at changing the world perception of developing nations.

http://www.drik.net Email: partha@drik.net

The Internet is contributing to an ever-widening gap between rich and poor which has now reached "grotesque" proportions, according to the new annual UN Human Development Report. The UN report says the Internet provides enormous benefits in terms of improved information and contacts. However, it is mainly used by educated young white males with access to money - so they benefit, while others are left out in the cold. The report condemns the polarisation between those who are able to take advantage of the benefits of economic globalisation and technological advances like the Internet, and those forced to suffer its effects. It says that, for inequalities to be reversed, the rules of globalisation need to be rewritten. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid_392000/392171.stm

Washington, DC -- In response to NTIA's release of the Falling Through the Net III report, the Internet Public Policy Network (IPPN) has created a clearinghouse of resources for organizations interested in the digital divide.

Included is information about different types of programs that address social issues created by the Information Revolution:

Education: Tech Corps (http://techcorps.org/) and the 21st Century Network (http://www.21ct.org/ ) show teachers how to use and teach the use of technology.

Access: Technology for All (http://tfa-houston.org/ ) is creating community computer access sites. The Eugene Free Community Network (http://www.efn.org/ ) is working to lower the cost of telecommunications to disadvantage communities.

Training: Cityskills.org (http://www.cityskills.org/ ) offers tools to prepare urban residents for jobs in web development. Cultural issues: The Administration's campaign to improve the image of IT workers is important. SeniorNet (http://www.seniornet.org/ ) creates a supportive community for senior citizens to interact and learn.

Details: Lawrence Hecht hechtl@internetpublicpolicy.com

San Jose, Calif. -- some of the earth's most remote places are now linked to the Net -- one recent addition is Bhutan, a small kingdom in the Himalayas, which inaugurated its first Internet link last month. But there are still no connections at all in Iraq, North Korea and a handful of African countries. In many countries that have Internet connections, Net access is concentrated in the largest cities and is prohibitively expensive when set against an individual's typical income. That expense largely restricts the use of the Internet to an elite, mostly made up of foreigners, government workers and business people. And in some cases, government censors put the Internet out of reach for most people in their countries. The conference here, called INET 99, was the annual meeting of the Internet Society, a nonprofit group that coordinates Internet- related projects around the world and has the motto "Internet Is for Everyone." http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/circuits/articles/08nett.htm

Compiled with an aim of promoting India-related content in cyberspace.

http://www.apnic.net/mailing-lists/s-asia-it/9905/msg00015.html

Center for Development Research (ZEF Bonn) on the Grameen Bank Village Pay Phone Project at http://www.zef.de/zef_englisch/f_first.html

A. Bayes, J. von Braun, R. Akhter; Village Pay Phones and Poverty Reduction: Insights from a Grameen Bank Initiative in Bangladesh http://www.zef.de/download/zef_dp8-99.pdf

A. Bedi; The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Economic Development http://www.zef.de/download/zef_dp7-99.pdf

Details from ZEF Bonn - Zentrum fuer Entwicklungsforschung,
Center for Development Research, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, D-53113
Bonn, Germany Email: d.mueller-falcke@uni-bonn.de

* The *First* Mile of Connectivity: Advancing Telecommunications for Rural Development

• http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/SUSTDEV/Welcome_.htm

* BASIC-NEEDS LIBRARY ON A CD

• http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/humcdrom

* INFORMATION-POVERTY RESEARCH

• Contact: mail@ipri.org http://www.ipri.org/

* LIST-SERVER FOR I.T. DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA

• Archives: http://www.apnic.net/wilma-bin/wilma/s-asia-it

* INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT SECTOR / INDIA

• http:// www.indev.org
• Contact Neena Jacob neena.jacob@bc-delhi.bcindia.sprintsmx.ems.vsnl.net.in

* SOFTWARE PACKAGE FOR MAHARASHTRA FARMERS / INDIA

• http://www.indian-express.com/ie/daily/19990508/ige08014.html

* VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY IN MADHYA PRADESH / INDIA

• http://www.mpchronicle.com/daily/19990506/0605001.html

* INTERNET-RADIO FOR THE MASSES / INDIA

• http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/

* INTERNET RADIO IN SRI LANKA

• http://www.unesco.org/webworld/highlights/internet_radio_130599.html

* VILLAGE KNOWLEDGE CENTRE

• http://www.mssrf.org/information village/knowledge-system-info-empowerment.html

* MULTIMEDIA FOR VILLAGERS / Project Vidya-India

• http://www.rediff.com/computer/1999/jun/08intel.htm

* EMAIL-SOFTWARE 'INDOMAIL' CAN WRITE 12 LANGUAGES / INDIA

• http://www.economictimes.com/today/15tech10.htm
• http://www.lastech.com/

* ANOTHER SOFTWARE FOR PAKISTAN, ARABIC SCRIPT

• http://raakim.com

* MEET TO FOCUS ON URDU SOFTWARE IN PAKISTAN

• http://www.sdpi.org

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

bYtES For aLL * Compiled by Frederick Noronha, Journalist

Goa India fred@vsnl.com or fred@goa1.dot.net.in &

Partha Pratim Sarker, Dhaka-Bangladesh partha@drik.net

Compiled in public interest * May be freely circulated

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Last updated: October 30, 1999